


Bashert

by fairmanor



Series: Tough Talks [6]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: David Rose is Jewish, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Judaism, M/M, Pre-Episode s05e05 Housewarming, Soulmates, cake eating, marriage talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26517604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairmanor/pseuds/fairmanor
Summary: David starts referring to Patrick with an unfamiliar word. Patrick questions him about it, leading to a discussion about their future.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Tough Talks [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918438
Comments: 36
Kudos: 258





	Bashert

**Author's Note:**

> \- I know we all know D & P end up getting married, but it's interesting to see them discuss what might happen if they never do, as well.

The first few times David says it, Patrick thinks he’s saying something about his shirt. David says it quietly, hastily, hooking it onto the end of his sentences in a way that makes Patrick think it’s definitely not an afterthought, but something he’d definitely be embarrassed to elaborate on should Patrick ask. Which, for the sake of David’s fragile dignity, he’s not going to.

 _Bashert._ It’s not a word Patrick’s ever come across before, and he wasn’t even sure how to spell it until he asked Siri for the definition, parroting the little word he’d heard David utter with increasing volume over the past couple of weeks with a pronunciation that David would probably have tried to make fun of if he were here. But he’s not. It’s just Patrick, alone in his new apartment, enjoying the breeze from the window that’s bigger than the one at Ray’s. He’s unpacking with waning enthusiasm with David on his mind, and stops in the middle of the slippy, polished new wooden floor to ask his phone the question.

“Bashert, noun. In Jewish use, a person's soulmate, especially when considered as an ideal or predestined marriage partner.”

The last two words are what make Patrick’s chest and belly, which were previously tingling with a fond warmth, burn up. It’s like panic and the opposite of panic. He clamps his lips together, suppressing a smile that doesn’t actually feel like it’s coming, and sits down on a box with his cup of tea for an hour doing absolutely nothing. The packing goes untouched for a long time.

No, that can’t be right. That’s probably not the way David intended for it to be said. That was just Google’s answer. A rigid dictionary definition. And Patrick knows his boyfriend well enough to be certain there’s nothing in the world that could reconcile him with a rigid dictionary definition. There’s no way David would be ready to marry him. Hell, Patrick doesn’t even know if _he’s_ ready to marry –

“Patrick, if you don’t have somewhere for me to sit down and eat this huge cake that Twyla gave me, I swear this is all over and I’m never coming back.”

Scratch that. He’d marry him tonight if he could.

As David walks through the door, grinning and swinging a large plastic bag, Patrick tries to work out what the goyish equivalent of bashert is. Before he has time to think of an answer, he has to rush over to stop David from splattering cake all over his new countertops.

“Okay, I’m not ready to explain to Ray why I’ve destroyed my new kitchen with – wait, what flavor even is this?” he says, lowering his nose to the mushy cake and inhaling the absurd, but not entirely bad, scent.

“Twyla calls it ‘Literal Surprise’. She says _she_ doesn’t even know what’s in it. The surprise part is apparently us calling her up to tell her what flavor it is.”

Patrick laughs. He’ll never get enough of this town.

“So, how are you?” David says, moving away from the cake to wrap his arms around Patrick’s shoulders. Patrick slots his arms in round David’s waist. Nowadays, it feels as easy as getting into bed. As easy as breathing.

David plants a soft kiss to Patrick’s lips then rubs his nose against Patrick’s, which makes him laugh. “I’m good. Tired.”

“You don’t seem to have done much more since this morning,” David says, not unkindly. “Everything okay?”

The tiniest hitch of Patrick’s shoulders and the minutest beat before he breathes is enough for David to let go of his shoulders and go put the kettle on.

“Cut yourself some cake,” David says, his eyes soft. Patrick appreciates the gesture, but it just winds him up even tighter and fills him with worry. David’s probably expecting something placid; a non-issue in the context of their relationship, like the overwhelm of moving house or some financial issue. Well, not that anything was outside the context of their relationship anymore. Him moving house was important to David too, and any financial issues Patrick was having would probably end up affecting David somewhere along the line as well. They’d been so interconnected the past few months that they’d sometimes take each other’s phones or wallets when they went somewhere or bring entire outfits to the store that had been cumulated from bits lying around on their respective floors.

And suddenly, David’s nickname makes sense. It makes sense in a terrifying and wonderful way.

David _does_ want to get married. He does. He wants Patrick to be his husband. As much as Patrick yearns for David to be his.

Patrick thinks about the past few weeks. About how David had wanted to move in with him. About how, when Alexis had all but forced the information out of David while they were getting drinks, David had been glad to rank his favorite romcom wedding scenes, ordered and categorised by décor tackiness and tearjerker factor. Patrick thinks about how much he loved David, and how he’d stop at nothing to show him.

He has a moment of panic where he imagines sitting down on the couch and blurting out, “Do you want to get married?” and David saying either yes or no, then shakes it off and sits down. David joins him on the couch and puts down two cups of coffee his own slice of cake.

“That coffee table has a bit of a squeak to it,” David says. Patrick just hums in agreement, kind of relieved for the distraction from his thoughts.

David inches closer and places a warm, firm hand on Patrick’s back, a wordless indication that he can start talking whenever he likes.

“David, what does bashert mean?”

The hand immediately draws back. Patrick almost thinks he can feel David’s temperature drop a couple of degrees next to him. Patrick regrets saying it, but it’s all he had. Anything else and he would have accidentally proposed on the spot.

David swallows hard. “First of all, your pronunciation is a lot better than I ever thought it would be, so I’m impressed,” he says, throwing a false laugh onto the end of the sentence. “And…it also makes me think that you looked it up, so I think you know exactly what it means.”

Patrick turns to David, his stomach plummeting at the fear in David’s eyes. Before he can get a word in, David is talking again.

“Listen, I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable. I know you probably don’t even want to think about all that kind of long term thing so I’m sorry if I’ve messed things up and I –”

“Hey, hey, shh, David,” Patrick says, holding up a hand then rubbing it up and down David’s thigh. “I was just asking.” Then, after a pause, he adds, “what does it mean to _you?”_

David sits back. Patrick notes the way his fingers go from fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves to smoothing down his leggings. Nervous to calm and back again in a matter of seconds, much like how Patrick is feeling. It’s charged, this conversation. It’s full of…things. Things they daren’t name. Things no human can name, like the future and their lives and the people they choose to love in them.

“I remember hearing it for the first time from my nanny, Adelina,” David says. “She was telling me about her daughter and her bashert. I asked her what it meant and she said it was just someone’s significant other.”

Oh.

Patrick is about to cut off the conversation and try not to sulk and overthink for the rest of the night when David continues.

“I was about six years old, so I think I asked her why her daughter had one. A bashert. And Adelina said, ‘We all have someone written into our fate by God. Someone pre-intended for –” David breaks off, his face reddening. “For us,” he finishes, clearing his throat and playing at nonchalance.

_...Oh._

A second passes where David is furiously fidgeting with his cuffs and Patrick is just…staring at him. The fidgeting slows and David looks up, looking even more embarrassed than before. David breaks out into laughter first, and Patrick tries hard not to follow in order to try and take David seriously, but he’s learned an awful lot recently that not everything has to be serious. Not everything has to be such hard work. He laughs along with David, trying to croon and placate him when David buries his face in his hands and then into Patrick’s side.

“Are you gonna come out of there at some point, baby?” Patrick says, stroking David’s hair.

David shakes his head. “Mm. Nope. Said too much.”

Patrick hauls David up by the armpits, ignoring his protests. “Quite the opposite. Come on, I wanna talk more about this.”

“But I made you uncomfortable,” David protests.

Patrick shakes his head. “Not uncomfortable at all. I was just surprised because I was never really sure if we were on the same page about…you know.”

David’s mouth twists to the side, his eyes crinkling at the sides. “About what?”

Patrick clears his throat. “You know, um…get’marid.”

David’s eyebrows raise. “Hm? Wanna – wanna say that again?”

“Mm…”

“Got a bit of – something stuck in your throat there, Brewer?”

“You know what I said,” Patrick says. Now it’s his turn to blush. But the warm tingling he felt before resurfaces, and he feels…safe. He feels safe here.

David laughs. “Getting married. There, now it’s been said.”

“Yup.”

Small waves of awkwardness and anxiety crest and break in turn over David’s beautiful face. He might be a hopeless romantic, even if not a self-proclaimed one, but Patrick can imagine he has his own reservations.

“I…don’t want you to feel any kind of obligation to say anything or do anything just to make me happy,” David says, his voice small. “You’ve, um, I know you’ve been through this before. So if we ever got to the point where – um…m-”

“Now who’s the one who can’t say it?” Patrick teases, lightly chucking David under the chin. David smiles at the gentle attention.

“Where _marriage_ is a – a thing, that we’re talking about,” David continues, drawing out every syllable on the offending word, “Then I would be happy if you never wanted to.”

Patrick nods once, slowly, then a couple times more as he lets the words sink in.

David, who watches other people’s bidding wars for wedding dresses on eBay just for fun and has an actual, honest-to-God dream book, would be happy not to marry at all if Patrick didn’t want to.

“And what if I did want to?” Patrick says. The look David gives him when he meets his eyes, full and relieved and absolutely fucking _brimming_ with hope, is something that Patrick wishes he could put in a locket.

“I don’t mind you calling me that, David,” he says. “I feel the same way. Whether we get to – to that point or not, whether we want to get married or not…I think you’re it for me. And I mean it.”

Patrick accommodates room for David as soon as he sees him lean over, bringing his arms out to pull him in for a kiss. They stay locked like that on the couch for a while, legs slotted together, hands linked, fitting together in that perfect and imperfect way they always did from the very first time they hugged at the Rose Apothecary launch. Even then, while he was weighing up the feeling of David’s warmth against him and the way his big, big hands rubbed up and down his back, everything inside Patrick just _sighed._ Over and over, all he could think was, _I was meant for this. This is who I am. He is who I am, and who I will be._ Destiny made sense, he supposed, when it was delivered in those hands. Bashert made sense.

“Say it again,” Patrick whispers in his love’s ear later that night. “Say it again, angel.”

David laughs quietly, the sound like reverence in holy halls as it resonates gently between their bare skin. “Bashert,” he says. “Bashert.”

Patrick likes that. It becomes something he asks for, for David to call him that when he’s feeling down or alone. It eventually progresses into him asking to hear more and more words in the same language. He likes hearing David’s voice but not knowing what is being said. As though he’s being worked into parts of David’s life where he doesn’t _have_ to have a place, but he does anyway. He does now.

If they never get married, if Patrick never steals David’s rings away for a minute to measure them like he’s been planning to, Patrick would be fine. They would be fine. But if that’s the case, Patrick had better start thinking of that goyish equivalent soon.

He’s shaken awake a few hours later by David sneaking out of bed and shuffling into the kitchen space, and – wait, there’s no way he’s actually…

“David, are you picking that cake out of the garbage?”

David looks up, his face guilty like a deer caught in the moonlit headlights.

“It was just – it was _sitting there,_ and I couldn’t stop thinking about how much of it we didn’t finish, and Twyla wanted me to tell her what was in it, so…”

Patrick chuckled and shook his head as he watched David flail and ramble through an explanation for his actions, his heart full of a rich, charged amusement and love that he hoped – no, knew – would never leave him. David, who was once unsure whether there was ever any writing in his destiny at all. David, who had spent so long searching and searching and _searching,_ and had found himself eating cake from a garbage can at two in the morning. God, this man was going to be the death of him. And the life of him, if he was lucky.

And as for that word…well.

Soulmate might do.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Okay, hear me out about the 'angel' thing. I genuinely think it's a nickname that David would actually tolerate, lol.
> 
> \- Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments do a happy writer make.
> 
> \- Come yell at me on [Tumblr](https://fairmanor.tumblr.com/), if you so desire.


End file.
